Here’s the Magic Moustache Bus picture with some another inch of sky and a shadow under the bus. While I was fixing this image, I noticed that I had missed painting Jimmy’s nose orange. So that’s three corrections in one go: sky, shadow, nose. I’d call that a good day’s work, when the day time allotted is 45 minutes, including the time to make this post.
Here’s what the image looks like in the Kindle Create preview window.
I’ve mentioned many time that I created many images with faulty dimensions that don’t work well in the e-book format. The picture of the Magic Moustache Bus is a good example. When I brainstormed and drew this image, I knew I wanted a wide picture to accommodate the bye bus’ impressive length. But I didn’t even consider how it would look when squeeze into an e-book page.
If I expand the image so that it’s full length goes from the left border to the right, which I plan to do, there’s a blank gap at the top. This image needs more height, which I create by using Procreate’s surprisingly useful cloud brush.
With my images of various sizes I figure that I can change the margins of the inDesign template to get enough wiggle room for most of the pictures to look pretty good. Doing a little nudging and tweaking is preferable to redrawing the misfit images. I reduced the margins from 20 mm to 5 mm for the e-book template. I had to google “change margins for all indesign pages” to learn that I go to File -> Adjust Layout. I like the skinny little margins. I might even change them to 0 mm to bleed to the edge of the screen. I’m basing my margins on what I see in the Kindle Cread preview app. I’m hoping that the preview shows what readers will actually see on their devices!
Going through my rough draft tonight I got a feeling of a good feeling…satisfaction. It was great to see all of the pictures and all of the text laid out. I still have some work to do on both the images and text, but I’m pleased with what I see.
The great thing about collecting all of the images and text into inDesign is that I can see which pictures are missing. When I say “missing”, I mean I can’t find them anywhere on my computer even though I processed them and posted them to this blog. I know that the did exist at one unknown time in the past.
The last time I checked there are about 1.2 million files in my home directory. I have half a dozen folders with images for this project. I have no clue what the image file is named. I’ve learned that it’s actually faster to re-do the picture than to look for it. The upside is that I believe that I’ve improved the picture. It should be improved — this is the third time I’ve repainted it. Now I have to put the picture somewhere that I can find it.
This my third al fresco sketch. As I collected my gear I was thinking that there’s nothing interesting in my back yard. Could I be bored with the Al Fresco Art Club already? Once I seated myself under one of our dominating deodor cedars, I looked to the East and noticed some large cumulonimbus clouds over the distant Siskiyou mountain range. There was interesting atmospheric perspective (which I didn’t capture in my sketch), and my partner, wearing her Van Gogh straw hat, sat in the foreground painting in her sketchbook.
I used my Pentel Brush pen for inking. It’s pretty beat up — it doesn’t come to a point anymore, but then again, it never did, really. I did a rough sketch with a 2H pencil then inked the sketch with the brush pen. It was fun, and not at all boring.
It’s Sunday and I’m beat. As much as I’d like go, go, go 24/7 on my children’s book, I’m weary and my tail is dragging. The thought of cracking open inDesign or Procreate is more than I can deal with. So…I’ve decided that I need one day a week, every week, to turn down the volume and have some fun.
What is fun? Fun is watching videos about historical figures, medieval life, Roman history. Fun is going outside to sketch with the drawing club, or staying inside to practice using Artrage, my current favorite digital painting application. Fun is shutting down at 6:30 pm and watching some kind of corny romantic comedy. Fun is reading a Clive Cussler thriller before dropping off to sleep. That’s what fun is.
And doodling is fun, too.
Chore day. I spent the day whacking weeds, chopping down a sad lilac bush suffering under the overpowering Diadora Cedar, doing laundry, setting up summer irrigation for the yard, changing to a plant-based, whole food diet. What’s that? Changing to another diet? Yep, the keto thing is over. I decided it’s ridiculous to be on a diet that requires a bucket full of supplements to stay healthy. From now on I’m just going to eat real food.
I’ll be back to making a children’s book tomorrow.
Now that I’m doing the layout with text and images, my casual approach to image size and proportion is coming back to bite me. Here’s an example of an image that’s not the right dimensions. This particular image should be wide enough to fill the page, and it should have a comfortable place for the text, or it should be narrower. When I sketched these drawings months ago, I should have given a little more thought the overall design of the page. Oh, well. Hindsight is 20/20. Next time I’ll do it right.
When all of the pictures are looking unfinished and the dialog seems jumbled, I feel humbled and respectful. Humble because I can see all of my errrors. Respectful because I now have greater respect for the authors of all of the children’s books I’ve read. Nevermore will I tell myself, “It will be a cinch to do a children’s book. 32 pages, 32 images and 200 words of dialog. What could be easier?”
Here’s a screenshot of the cover. I’ll be changing the title in the next version by removing the words “to Save a Friend”. I think it’s better that the title be more suggestive. Let the reader find out why the bluejay jumped down the chimney.
Now and then my best laid plans go astray. Today I worked on my day job well into the evening. Today is the second day of my new work project and I was swamped with dozens of email requests that needed answering. I like my job, a lot. It keeps this Ship of Art afloat. Long live day jobs!
